Passion or Hard Work: Which comes first?

byDadaz123

2K followers

3 years ago

To many people, passion and hard work seem like the perfect chicken-and-egg situation where it is not totally clear which of the two should be considered the cause, and which should be the effect.

Is it passion that drives hard work or hard work that drives passion?

Have you ever watched a man or woman passionate about what they do and wondered where they got their passion from? They exude so much energy and intensity in what they are doing that you are prone to think they were born that way. I know I used to think that way. Not knowing that passion could be cultivated just like any habit.

Does talent cut it?

Sometimes we think it’s all about talent but we have seen a number of highly talented people who have not made much with their lives. Talent not well channeled merely goes to rust. There seems to be a missing ingredient in talented people who have not been successful. That missing ingredient is consistent hard work. It is sweat equity. Stephen King has this to say of talent:

“

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”

How do you become passionate about anything?

One of two ways. It’s either you were born with the talent. Or you develop an avid interest in some area. Then you go ahead and learn the skills. In either case, you will need to surround the talent or skill acquired with a lot of hard work for you to become passionate

It takes 10,000 hours to become good at anything or 28 days of doing the same thing over and over to create a habit.That’s for starters. In this age of instantaneous gratification, it takes a lot of discipline and commitment to keep plugging at a skill training especially when the moolah is not rolling in straightaway.

Renowned Personalities & their Passions

Late Evangelist Billy Graham developed his passion for preaching to large crowds in arenas all over the world by first learning to preach to cows in his father’s barn. Each time he went to feed the cows, he would preach to them. Remember Covey wrote in his classical book, “ 7 Habits of Effective People, “ Private practice precedes public victory.” Pastor Billy Graham had perfected his art of preaching to mass audiences by preaching to cows. By the time he erupted on the world stage, he was ready.

I watched Billy Graham preach to a large audience in Oakland in the late 1990’s. I was transfixed by his passion and clarity. I had never seen the gospel preached in that manner before.

Michael Jackson spent his childhood working on his musical art while his age mates were playing with their toys. Michael had shown talent in music at an early age but he needed his Dad’s insistence on hard work to develop the passion. I find it ironic that his Dad’s insistence on hard work that led to Michael’s recognition as KIng of Pop would make him accuse his dad of child abuse.

All you need to do is go back and rewatch some old Michael Jackson movies. Watch the passion he displays on stage. It was borne out of the talent and hard work he had put in.

Bill Gates was so hardworking that he got himself exemptions from his 8th grade Math class so he could work on video games. He was always working on his video games while others were doing Math in class. I assume he must have been a good Math student who was pretty much ahead of his class to have earned those exemptions. Any wonder, he became co-founder of the world’s foremost software company, Microsoft.

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“ A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” Colin Powell.